(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and device for decoding a product code.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Recently, very low bit error rates (BER) have been required for radio communication or storage devices without feedback channels so as to provide reliability to information transmission or storage. A turbo code or low-density parity-check (LDPC) code is used to correct errors, but it is difficult to achieve very low BERs required for the radio communication or storage devices without feedback channels by only using the code.
Accordingly, a decoding method using a product code has been proposed. The product code includes a horizontal code and a vertical code, and the decoding method using a product code sequentially decodes the horizontal code and the vertical code of the product code.
Further, in order to increase decoding performance, the maximum likelihood (ML) decoding scheme using soft decision information for the horizontal code and the vertical code of the product code has been proposed. However, the ML decoding process of the product code is complicated, and two independent decoders must be implemented when the horizontal code and the vertical code of the product code are different.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.